Is all work experience good experience?

Graduate Cait Reilly is taking legal action against the government after being ordered to do unpaid work experience at Poundland or lose her benefits

Cait Reilly outside Poundland in Birmingham: she claims her human rights have been breached by the government when she was made to work there or forfeit her benefits. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian David Sillitoe/Guardian

Toby Young, journalist and co-founder of the West London Free School

This story struck a chord with me because I once participated in a work experience programme. This was in 1980. I'd left school at the age of 16, having failed all but one of my O-levels, and my father suggested I join this scheme whereby I had to do unpaid work as a condition of continuing to get the dole.

For four months I had a succession of manual jobs: washer-upper, lavatory cleaner, etc. Having never worked a day before in my life, I was utterly appalled. It was a brilliant stroke on my father's part because I quickly realised that if I didn't go back to school and get some proper qualifications – which he'd been urging me to do – this would be my lot in life. So I retook my O-levels, managed to get into the sixth form of a grammar school and, from there, went on to Oxford. It's not an exaggeration to say that the four months I spent doing work experience were the making of me.

Now, I know what you're going to say. Cait Reilly is a university graduate so there's no comparison. But I don't agree. If, as she says, she wants a career as a museum curator, she'll need at least a masters degree, possibly even a doctorate. Perhaps the two weeks she spent stacking shelves in Poundland will have the same galvanising effect on her as cleaning lavatories did on me and she'll go back to university and get some additional qualifications.

More generally, I approve of these sorts of schemes because they denude young people of their sense of entitlement. The world doesn't owe them a living. They can't just expect a fulfilling career to fall into their laps – and the sooner they realise that, the better off they'll be.

Martin Bright, political editor of the Jewish Chronicle and founder of New Deal of the Mind

I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would be delighted with a scheme that stripped idle middle-class teenagers of their sense of entitlement. But I'm not sure this is the best use of taxpayers' money in the current circumstances. In setting up the work experience programme, the government correctly recognised that one of the biggest barriers to young people entering the job market is lack of experience. But providing unpaid labour to prop up businesses' bottom lines is not the answer.

It may well be that Cait Reilly would be galvanised by stacking shelves, but I am really worried about the wider implications of the Poundland example. Free labour in the shape of lengthy unpaid internships has already become accepted as the norm for young people in a whole range of white-collar jobs. This places them out of reach of all but the most privileged. We are now at risk of embedding the injustice of free labour in the retail sector and, more worryingly, the benefits system itself.

Of course, this isn't just because British-born people turn their noses up at low-paid service jobs. It's also because they're caught in the welfare trap. Why take a job at Pret if your take-home pay after tax is only going to be 5% higher than what it would be if you remained on Jobseekers' Allowance? That's why Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms are so important and why we shouldn't let his bill be wrecked by Labour and Lib Dem peers in the House of Lords. To break the cycle of long-term unemployment we have to make sure people are properly incentivised to go out to work.

MB I agree that the ONS statistics are compelling and that we need to ask ourselves why young British people appear not to be taking the jobs on our high streets. But I don't see how this situation will be helped by institutionalising unpaid labour. As you say yourself, we need to find the right incentives to crack the crisis of long-term youth unemployment.

Breaking the contract of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay is not the answer (although I can see how tempting it is for employers and desperate governments). Poundland-type work experience does nothing to help people out of the benefit trap as dole payments continue.

My experience at New Deal of the Mind, the charity I set up two years ago to help get young people off the dole, is there are thousands out there willing to work. But we do have a responsibility to pay them. Around 70% of 18- to 24-year-olds on our six-month paid work placements found full-time work or, like you, went back into education. And 90% of the 800 people we put back to work said they could not have taken the opportunities without being paid.

TY Well done for trying to do something about this instead of just sniping from the sidelines. Respect!

The problem with limiting the companies participating in work experience programmes to just those willing to pay is that it inevitably becomes quite a small programme, not one capable of making a dent in the problem of youth unemployment. You say that 90% of the 800 people you got back into work said they couldn't have afforded to take the work experience opportunities you provided them with without being paid, but if, like Cait Reilly, they're getting Jobseekers' Allowance I can't see that being an issue.

The bottom line is whether you think it's right for the Department of Work and Pensions to use various tough measures to get the unemployed back into the workplace, even if that initially involves not being paid. I think it is – for the sake of the unemployed themselves – and the Poundland example is misleading because most of the jobs people get through the programme are considerably better than that and often lead to paid employment.

MB If we are going to crack this, we need to be un-ideological about the solutions. And, yes, sometimes these will need to be tough. But realistically, unless we are prepared to countenance destitution for the long-term unemployed who don't take up work experience or some modern equivalent to the workhouse, we will have to create new jobs and persuade people that it is financially worth coming off the dole to take them.

Your argument (and indeed mine) depends on there being jobs out there for people to do and part of the challenge will be to create those new opportunities as the economy recovers. The coalition has recognised the need for a subsidy for employers who take on young people, which is why they have introduced the Youth Contract. But in parts of the country where there are no large employers and the state sector is contracting, we will also need to encourage young people to set up their own startup companies. This will take a shift in the something-for-nothing culture among employers and employees alike. And if this is to work, the process will need to begin well before young people leave school. Over to you, Toby.